A guy on Twitter was confused by people saying to save vegetable peels to make stock. He said he can afford, when the time comes, to just buy an onion for it.

I get that this was Twitter, home of the knee-jerk reaction and snark, but it stuck with me.

I don't want to buy a fresh onion for stock. I usually keep a bag of onion peel, carrot ends, and wilted celery in the freezer. This is mostly in the winter when I want soups, but sometimes in the summer too. I haven't this summer, but the tweet reminded me to start again.

It bothers me to waste money, time, natural resources, and opportunities to create. I've wasted a lot of these things and I know I'll waste more. Still, it seems worthwhile on many levels to try to waste less. It doesn't require much.

Mostly, I think the guy's tweet is a bad message. I have no idea how many followers he has — I can't remember who posted it — but no one reading it was well served. Except maybe me.

Her's my message: put an old bread bag in the freezer. When chopping onions, carrots, and celery, push the cuttings into the bag instead of the garbage bin. Keep going until the bag is full.

Then, some weekend, empty the bag into a big pot, add water to cover, throw in some spices (cloves make the house smell great), boil, reduce to simmer, cook for a couple hours or longer (for stronger stock).

When you strain out the vegetables, you'll see, smell, and taste stock you created seemingly out of nothing, but in fact out of everything. Either way, it feels and tastes better than snark, and it's cheaper than buying and wasting a fresh onion.